tilted behaviour

It had been well over three months, but I was finally on my way back to Melbourne for a home game to catch up with a bunch of my poker buddies.

I began Saturday with a trip into town to watch a few hours of my cricket club’s Grand Final (which we eventually lost) before making my way up the highway to Crown. I said hello to some friends I hadn’t seen in ages before making heading to Mat’s house to help set up the home game.

Mat has a bungalow out the back of his house, and now that it has been cleared out, we set up a table in there in preparation for the night.

We had a full table of nine players as we sat down around 8:30pm to play some 25c-50c NLH. I chipped up to around $90 in the first hour before hitting a very cold run of cards for the next several hours. I was pushed out of a few pots to slip back to around $65 before opening with a raise to $1.50 from under the gun with 8♥ 5♥. It was called round to Oatsy on the button who made it $6.50 to go with about $70 behind him. I called, as did three others, to see a flop of A♥ J♠ 8♣ fall and action check round to Oatsy who continued with a very small bet of $7.50. Now I had to decipher what exactly he had.

I had bluffed him on a few occasions and knew that he was capable of folding a hand to me as he is more than solid when it comes to cash games. Also he had been stealing a few pots to accumulate some chips after losing a buy-in early. In this spot there is a good chance that he flopped huge like Aces, Jacks or Ace-Jack or flopped well with Ace-King or Ace-Queen. However I believed his range was more skewed to weaker and more marginal holdings like weak Aces or underpairs and decided that I could successfully win the pot by running an educated bluff.

Now he was never going to fold one of those huge hands, so my bluff would have to see him fold out the top of his perceived slightly weaker range; basically Ace-Ten and worse. One of the players in the hand – Alex – was throwing a huge stare-down at Oatsy like he wanted to get funky with some sort of Ace or Jack so that made me consider a bluff even more.

Taking stack sizes into consideration, I took my time before check-raising to $22 so that if he called it would take the pot to $77.25 and both of us having just on $50 behind (to be honest I really wish I had more so that my turn ship looked more powerful . . . but oh well). Alex took his time before folding before Oatsy spent a minute summing up the situation before calling.

Knowing that he either had it or not, I was looking for a blank on the turn that didn’t improve his middle-tier range so that my shove would force a fold. Now of course if he called I was probably drawing dead!

The turn landed the 2♠ and I moved all in only to be quickly called by Oatsy. I tossed my cards into the muck and announced, “your set is good mate” before he rolled over Jacks. We didn’t even deal a river and I was forced to rebuy another $50 as everyone on the table just looked shocked at what had just gone down.

Money pretty much passed round in circles all night, and I eventually finished even after rivering two-pair with Ace-Ten against Ace-Queen as we called it a night at around 4:30am.

After crashing at Alex’s for the night, I was up earlier then I wished as I was on my way to catch up with a friend at Chadstone for lunch and a movie.

Bec wanted to grab some Yum Cha which I was happy to oblige with although I found it oddly strange not to be eating Yum Cha in Chinatown where I’m use to. Afterwards we decided to summon our inner-child and decided to watch the newly released How To Train Your Dragon in 3D.

Toothless and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

Getting use to the 3D glasses took longer than I expected but they definitely worked in some parts of the movie, otherwise it was probably no different to watching it in the normal 2D format. All-in-all I definitely recommend seeing it as it does have an interesting storyline and was pretty funny even if you aren’t a child.

Bec made her way home to prepare for her new job starting tomorrow while I made my way to Crown to play in Event 8: $200 No Limit Holdem / Pot Limit Omaha Teams Event with Alex.

He sat down first to play the NLH orbit while I was due to play the PLO one. We got off to a slow start with not much action from either game before I chipped up on the last hand of my orbit when I raised from the button over a few limpers holding 8♣ 7♣ 7♠ 5♥ and took the pot down with a continuation bet on the 10♠ 3♠ 3♣ board.

During my next PLO orbit I was dealt Aces twice and picked up the blinds with an under the gun raise and then limped in from the cutoff before taking it down on the flop. However – just like the previous orbit – I won a substantial pot on the final hand of the level when after a limp I raised holding Q♥ J♣ J♠ 9♠. The big blind called as did the limper before a flop of 10♣ 7♣ 2♠ fell. The limper fired out for pot and I felt like he had complete air and decided to make the call as the big blind passed. We both checked the 6♠ on the turn before I was faced with another pot-sized bet when the river landed the Q♦. I tanked for about a minute before making the call to be shown a pair of sixes and three cards forming the rest of his air.

Unfortunately for us things would fall apart in the next PLO orbit when the most aggressive player on the table flopped top set of sevens on me and I was forced to fold to his check-raise. A few hands later I called one of his light raises from the button with A♠ K♠ 6h 5♥. Dean Francis – a solid PLO regular player – also called from the big blind and fired out pot on a fairly dry board with an overpair and flush draw as I folded and Alex subbed in.

We wouldn’t last too many more hands when after facing a limp for 1,200 from the hi-jack, Alex jammed for over 7,000 from the cutoff holding Q♦ 9♦. His opponent took his time before calling, only to table a dominating A♣ 9♥. We turned a gutshot but blanked as we hit the rail in about 40th place from the original 118 starters.

Although it wasn’t a greatly successful poker trip up to Melbourne, it was great to catch up with everyone and am looking forward to getting back there next weekend.